Holiday souvenirs
By rights, the next holiday post ought to be about our second day in Bordeaux. But we drank a bottle of Gaillac the other night, and enjoyed it, and wanted to make a note of it, so here's a brief post about Gaillac instead.
It was the briefest of visits:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler has good memories of a walking holiday in the region, and when he saw how close we would pass on our way from A to B (Figeac to Pau, in fact, but that's another story) he demanded a detour to buy some wine. Gaillac has a Maison des Vins, an organisation whose function is to promote the wine produced locally. You'd think this would be usual in a wine-producing area, but no, and it can be quite difficult to get a general idea of what is available: Irouléguy, I am looking at you. In Gaillac you head for the former Abbey of Saint Michel: it's very central, by the river, which is just as well, because the roads into town were busy, and some streets were closed - I was distracted by the site of a tanker parked outside one wine shop, blazoned with the description 'liquide alimentaire' - but we found the abbey (it's quite a landmark) and parking right across the way. Inside, we mooched around and looked at bottles and tried to guess from the labels what we would like - and there were some wines on offer for tasting, too.
I don't think we tasted the Mas de Grouze (it was this one, in fact, although ours was the 2012). So it must have been just luck. I'd have been attracted by the presence of local grapes (braucol and duras) alongside the usual suspects (syrah, merlot and cabernet sauvignon), and the price (5€) made it worth a try - though by this stage I was more concerned about where we would pack all these bottles!
durham_rambler didn't think this would be a problem, so I left him to sort it out, and dived into the secondhand bookshop which was having a clearance sale: everything was 60% off, but as soon as you started to look the staff rushed up and warned you not to move anything. This was unnerving, but I still bought several very large and very cheap picture books. And there was enough of our two hours parking left for a quick stroll around town (which was mainly closed, because it was Monday.
Gaillac was the first place we had seen these pink umbrellas (a regional promotion about screening for breast cancer) and they looked particularly well against the red brick of which the old town is built. We could have stayed a lot longer, but we had to move on. Just one more photo:
It was the briefest of visits:
durham_rambler has good memories of a walking holiday in the region, and when he saw how close we would pass on our way from A to B (Figeac to Pau, in fact, but that's another story) he demanded a detour to buy some wine. Gaillac has a Maison des Vins, an organisation whose function is to promote the wine produced locally. You'd think this would be usual in a wine-producing area, but no, and it can be quite difficult to get a general idea of what is available: Irouléguy, I am looking at you. In Gaillac you head for the former Abbey of Saint Michel: it's very central, by the river, which is just as well, because the roads into town were busy, and some streets were closed - I was distracted by the site of a tanker parked outside one wine shop, blazoned with the description 'liquide alimentaire' - but we found the abbey (it's quite a landmark) and parking right across the way. Inside, we mooched around and looked at bottles and tried to guess from the labels what we would like - and there were some wines on offer for tasting, too.I don't think we tasted the Mas de Grouze (it was this one, in fact, although ours was the 2012). So it must have been just luck. I'd have been attracted by the presence of local grapes (braucol and duras) alongside the usual suspects (syrah, merlot and cabernet sauvignon), and the price (5€) made it worth a try - though by this stage I was more concerned about where we would pack all these bottles!
durham_rambler didn't think this would be a problem, so I left him to sort it out, and dived into the secondhand bookshop which was having a clearance sale: everything was 60% off, but as soon as you started to look the staff rushed up and warned you not to move anything. This was unnerving, but I still bought several very large and very cheap picture books. And there was enough of our two hours parking left for a quick stroll around town (which was mainly closed, because it was Monday.Gaillac was the first place we had seen these pink umbrellas (a regional promotion about screening for breast cancer) and they looked particularly well against the red brick of which the old town is built. We could have stayed a lot longer, but we had to move on. Just one more photo: